Social and Organizational Psychology

IBP 2017-2018

Prosocial behavior: Helping others

Empathy: the capacity to be able to experience others’ emotional states, feel sympathetic toward them, and take their perspective

• Emotional empathy: involves sharing the feelings and emotions of others
• Empathic accuracy: perceiving others’ thoughts and feelings accurately
• Empathic concern: involves feelings of concern for another’s well-being

Motives for prosocial behavior:

• Empathy-altruism hypothesis: we help those in need because we experience empathic concern for them
• Negative-state relief model: people help other people in order to relieve and make less negative their own emotional discomfort
• Empathic joy hypothesis:  helping stems from the positive reactions recipients show when they receive help (e.g., gifts) and the positive feelings this, in turn, induces in helpers.
• Competitive altruism theory:  we help others as a means of increasing our own status and reputation
• Kin selection theory: we help others who are related to us because this increases the likelihood that our genes will be transmitted to future generations
• Defensive helping: reducing the threat posed by outgroups to our own ingroup

Helping between strangers

• Diffusion of responsibility: the more bystanders present as witnesses to an emergency, the less likely each of them is to provide help and the greater the delay before help occurs
• Pluralistic ignorance: the tendency for an individual surrounded by a group of strangers to refrain from acting
  • Because the bystanders depends on the others to provide cues for appropriate action, no one does anything.

When are we likely to help?

• When the other is similar to us
• Being exposed to a prosocial model
• Playing prosocial videogames

When are we not likely to help?

• Social exclusion: being excluded from others makes us less likely to be empathetic
• Darkness: feeling of anonymity
•  Putting an economic value on our time: time used in helping others can’t be used for other activities, including ones that generate income

An important factor determining how recipients react to help is the motivation underlying such behavior:

• If it seems to stem from internal motives (e.g., a genuine desire to help), positive feelings and reactions may result
• If it stems from external motives (i.e., the helper felt obligated to extend assistance), reactions tend to be far less favorable

Crowdfunding: allows individuals to make financial contributions to entrepreneurs, to help them start new companies

Men and women

• Do not differ in prosocial behavior overall
• Women are more likely to engage in prosocial actions when these involve people with whom they personal relationships than with strangers

Reference:

Baron, R., & Branscombe, N. (2016). Social psychology (14th edition) Harlow: Pearson Education Limited

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